


Full Disclosure

by doritoFace1q



Series: An Incomplete Saga of Unabridged Halves [1]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children, Gallifrey, Gen, Headcanon, Looms (Doctor Who), Recovered Memories, Repressed Memories, Tecteun is Rassilon, The Matrix - Freeform, Time Vortex, Untempered Schism (Doctor Who), i accept chibnall's backstory only to raise him one because no, in which every single one of the doctor's backstories are canon, not so redacted now are you, rewritten/updated as of 14/06/2020, sort of thoschei but also not, takes place during that mind blown memory bit, timeless children fix-it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:47:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23335621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doritoFace1q/pseuds/doritoFace1q
Summary: In which the Matrix blows the Doctor's mind, she returns the favour, and it gives it right back all over again.Or,The Doctor sees the redacted parts of the story, and a little bit more.
Relationships: The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who)
Series: An Incomplete Saga of Unabridged Halves [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1653319
Comments: 8
Kudos: 58





	Full Disclosure

**Author's Note:**

> Since the summary is shit: basically, when the Doctor does the whole "blow the Matrix by overloading it with her own memories" thing, she breaks the seal (barrier? block? firewall?) on her redacted memories, and the Matrix shows them to her. Why? Because I have headcanons and the finale was fucking with them, so I decided to fix it.
> 
> Part of a series, but can be read on its own.

_Redacted_.

“Wait!” the Doctor cried as Ruth vanished from before her eyes. “Oh, bloody brilliant,” she groaned, finding herself, once again, left alone in the Matrix. “Very helpful, thanks.”

She tugged furiously at her hair and swivelled around, clenching her teeth.

_You have to get out of here_.

“Yeah, thanks,” she muttered. A groan of frustration tore from her throat and she dropped her hands. “Come _on_ ,” she muttered, pacing in a circle. “Work, brains!” She smacked the side of her head. “Come on,” she said again, squeezing her eyes shut. “What did she say, what did she _say_?”

Her head throbbed and, around her, the Matrix flickered. There was a loud, grinding noise, like machinery breaking down, and she gasped. “Of _course_!” she cried. “Oh, my head is so _stupid_!” She knocked her knuckles against her skull.

_I know this place has blown your mind_ , Ruth-her’s voice echoed in her head. _Maybe you should return the compliment_.

“Mind blown.” She gasped. “Oh, _yes_! Doctor, you are brilliant— _I’m_ brilliant!” She turned her head up, staring, wide-eyed, at the endless mass of infinite, swirling _redacted_. “All this history.” She whirled around, dragging a hand through the mist-that-wasn’t-mist. “All these lies—it’s too much stimulus!” She laughed as the realization hit her. “Like overloading a hard drive!

“You’re just a computer, aren’t you?” She chuckled to herself, cracking her knuckles (bad habit, that, but it’s not like it would hurt her). “That’s it. Oh, we can give you a fancy name and posh interface, but that’s all you really are. And computers—easy to break, they are. Ha!” She threw her hands into the air. “I’m talking to myself again!” she exclaimed gleefully with a small hop. “Good sign! Brilliant! Thanks, Doctor! No, wait, shut up!” She flapped her hands and shook her head.

The Matrix was weakening—the strain of the ancient memories was taking a larger toll than the Master had expected. “Focus. Come on, Doctor.” She rubbed her hands together and shifting her feet, crouching down into a steady stance. “You know what they say,” she said, bouncing on the balls of her feet and taking a deep breath, “nothing ventured, nothing blown.”

_Concentrate_.

“All right,” she hissed, pushing her hair back and pressing her fingers to her temples. “Have a blast of—”

Her words were torn away from her as her mind exploded.

_Disclosed_.

Sunshine. Orange sky. A light, warm breeze that rustled red sand, sifting it over fields of golden dirt. It squirmed, kicking against the wall between it and the world.

She rubbed a hand over the swell of her belly. “Can you feel that?” Her voice flowed like a river breaking over stones, and, though the words themselves were mere nonsense, it knew what she was saying. “He said you would.” Calloused fingers brushed over the bump and it kicked again. “You’re a live one,” she grunted, shifting her weight as she lay herself down and stretched her arms above her head. She wiggled her fingers, catching rays of burning gold on the tips of them, and it shifted at the heat of them. “You like that, do you?” She murmured. “I thought you might.”

She wore none of the heavy robes that propriety demanded within the glass sphere, and there was nothing but a layer of sheer, feather-light silk between her skin and the sand she lay in. It wriggled in its cocoon of heat, reaching out—to the sand, to the sky, and to the stars that were beginning to shimmer up above in the deep red twilight. A short, throaty chuckle shook it to the core. “Not yet, little one,” she murmured “Soon.

“It may have been quicker had you been Loomed,” she added offhandedly, stroking her fingers across her belly almost absent-mindedly. “But then it wouldn’t be right, would it? You were meant to be this way. A perfect little paradox.” It twisted at the word, striking out at the tainted ugliness of it. She made a soothing, hushing noise, rubbing her midriff.

“You’ll see it all,” she promised, “soon.” She touched a light kiss to the pads of her fingers and pressed them to her abdomen. “You’ll see it all.”

_My timeless child_.

She grabbed gleefully at the loose red ringlets hanging over her, squealing in delight as she tangled small, pudgy fists in them. A gentle hand pried her little ones away and she clung onto the fingers, happily shoving them into her toothless mouth. Voices were speaking, a low hum of background noise behind the tinkling of the silver leaves outside the library window, the rustle of long red robes, and the sighs and harmonies of the collective mind.

“You never had any yourself, did you?” She was nestled in the crook of her mother’s arm, and she rocked her gently. “Children.”

“I never had the opportunity.” The new voice was different, like glass scraping over wet sand, speaking only with noise and without song. The words were meaningless to her, but she clung tighter to her mother’s hand even so, letting out a small whimper around her fingers. “There was always a greater task at hand. Gallifrey. Wars. Time.”

“Of course, of course.” Her mother withdrew her fingers and she squirmed in her arms, kicking at the heavy wool she was swaddled in. “What about before, then? Before the Citadel and the Time Lords.”

“I haven’t the faintest clue what you mean.” She took hold of the corner of the blanket and began mouthing ferociously at it.

“I visited the Matrix, recently.” Deft fingers pulled the wool from her grasp and stroked the side of her head. “Some light research, you know. I ended up digging deep—deeper even than I knew it ran.”

She twisted in her arms and hiccupped. Her mother lifted her up, patting her back as she burped. “And?”

A sudden wave of _thought_ rolled off of her mother and she flinched, whimpering quietly into her shoulder. She didn’t know what they were—too loud, too fast, too much—but it scared her.

The thoughts stopped. “Do you recognize her?” Quiet. She grabbed a handful of her mother’s curls and shoved them into her mouth. “Lord President?”

“No.”

“What about her mind?”

“. . . Yes.” A loud scrape cut through the quiet of the room and she whined, pressing an ear against her mother’s shoulder. “Have you any idea what you’ve done?”

“I entered a time loop when I saw those memories,” her mother said, shifting her back into her arms. “I’m only completing it.”

“It’s a paradox.” She shifted, downy hairs on her arms and the back of her neck standing up, a shiver running through her body at the word.

“That you helped create.” Her mother stroked the peach fuzz that was beginning to come in on the top of her head.

There was a moment of silence, broken only by her cooing as she played with her mother’s hair. “You’ve told no one.”

“Of course not.” Her mother tickled her belly and she giggled. “Who would believe a madman, anyways?” _Renegade_. The word bounces around in her head. She doesn’t know what it means. She doesn’t know if she likes it.

“Mad enough to carry this out.” More silence. She hiccupped. “Five years. Maybe six.”

“Understood.” Her mother shifted her weight as she stood up, robes rustling and brushing against her cheek. She wiggled in protest to the sudden movement.

There was a _whoosh_ of air and wood on wood as heavy doors swung open. She held her hands out, grabbing gleefully at the sunlight pouring in through the windows on the other side of the hall. “Who?” glass-on-sand called. “The father—what is it?”

“That’s for me to know, and you to not.” The doors closed silently behind them.

“Mama?”

“We’re nearly there.”

“Nearly where?” The strange robes she had been given flapped behind her in the wind, and her head ached from the tight plaits her hair had been pulled into. She glanced down over the side of the skimmer at the slopes of red and brown flying past beneath their feet and shifted closer to the edge, craning her neck to get a better look. Her mother’s grip tightened on hers, and she was pulled back. “Where are we going?” There was something in the air—low and thrumming, strange and shifting, everywhere and nowhere all at once—that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up and rhythm of her hearts speed up.

The skimmer sailed over the crest of a slope and slowed to a halt. Her mother dismounted and she hopped off after her, stumbling a bit as she tripped over the hem of her robes. Her mother held her hand out again. “Come.” Her voice echoed with a psychic touch and she took her hand, reaching for the link they shared as she did so. Where she was normally met with warmth and a familiar song, she now felt only a hard wall. She faltered, staring up at the woman, her mind echoing with the silence where the melody should have been.

“Come,” she said again, and she followed. She let her eyes wander as she was led forwards, taking in the dry, dusty soil and thin, scraggly trees, and the layers of snow that covered everything. The train of her robes were already wet, and stained with crimson mud. The _something_ was louder now—not quite proper sound, but close.

There was a smell in the air, like traces of smoke lingering long after a fire had burnt out, or scorched earth after being struck by lightning. Like the not-sound, it was almost there but not quite, otherworldly and mysterious, and indescribably familiar; the shapeless figure that cast the shadow that clung to the streets of the Citadel, her older Cousins’ skin, and the TARDIS shipyard she had once snuck off to see.

“What is that?” she asked.

“You’ll see.”

“But what is it?” she pressed. “I like it,” she said when her mother didn’t respond.

“You would.” Her mother ran a thumb over her knuckles. “It was meant for you, as you were meant for it.”

“What does that mean?” she persisted.

“Hush, now,” her mother murmured, cutting her off. “We’re here.”

They had stopped. They stood in front of the gaping mouth of a deep, dark cave, and she tilted her head, frowning into it. The almost-sound was near deafening and she knew it came from within.

A man stood by the cave entrance, posture stiff. The woman inclined herself towards him in a small bow, and he nodded stiffly. “What’s in the cave?” she asked. “Who is that?” She frowned at the man, blinking once, twice. His white robes were blinding in the world of dusty red, and, for whatever reason, she could not, no matter how hard she tried, focus on his face.

Her mother put a hand on her shoulder. “Greet the Lord President, love,” she said.

“Hello,” she said dutifully. “You smell funny.”

“Hm.” The Lord President held a hand out towards her. “Come, child.”

“Why?”

Her mother knelt down beside her. “There’s something we need you to do,” she told her, placing her hands on her shoulders.

“What?” she asked. “Who?”

“You, love,” she replied, stroking her forehead. “Go with the President,” she said. “I’ll see you in a second.”

“Why can’t you come with me?” she asked.

“I can’t.” She ran her hands up and down her arms. She smiled, and looked almost sad. “Go, now.”

Her mother stood and the Lord President put a hand on her shoulder, steering her away and into the cave. The light of the moons vanished, and darkness engulfed them. Her robes whispered as they brushed against the hard stone floor.

No, not her robes—the _cave_ was whispering. The hushed breaths mixed with the screaming of the almost-noise, like the a storm that wasn’t so much raging as it was simmering, and she knew they were walking right towards the source.

“Are you really the President of Gallifrey?” she asked. “What’s the High Council like? Do you ever have days off?”

The Lord President stopped and removed his hand from her shoulder. “We’re here.”

There was something before her, and she didn’t know what. For a moment, she could imagine her eyes were playing tricks on her in the darkness of the cave, weaving images out of nothing, but, when she blinked, it was still there. Like a dark spot in her vision after staring into the sun, midnight so dark it was almost bright. She squinted away from it, head throbbing.

“Go on,” the Lord President said. “Look.”

She took a hesitant step forwards, then another, then another. She stood, close enough to reach out and touch it, and—

And, for a moment, she felt like she _knew_. She didn’t know what she knew, but she knew it. It burned inside her, mind and soul, and it was like—

A hand grabbed her shoulder, another striking her temple, hard. She stumbled, head reeling (there was a wave rolling in, washing over the beach, and when it receded the beach was clear, as if there had never been anyone on it in the first place) and, with a shove from behind, fell, through and down and—

And she sees a sky except it can’t be the sky because the sky isn’t blue and a haze of pulsing purple and he robes are billowing around her like something she can’t describe and she’s falling falling falling falling falling falling and then she hits the ground and—

_Time is of your essence_.

Sorting through the Matrix was nothing like sorting through a regular computer. There were no organized files, not neatly labeled folders, no handy search bar, and the closest thing to a Task Manager was your own willpower and psychic ability, and a friend standing by to let you out should things get too hectic.

Likewise, breaking the Matrix took significantly more effort than smashing a laptop with a hammer.

Images flew by her, tearing through her head with all the elegance of a rampaging bull in a china shop, crashing through walls and ripping up floorboards. She thought she might have been screaming, but, at this point, she couldn’t even tell anymore. Her mind was being ripped apart and shredded to pieces, then blown to bits all over again, but she still couldn’t let go.

The Doctor was vaguely aware that she had fallen to her knees. Her fingers were still pressed tightly to her temples as the Matrix swirled around her, input and output and somewhere-in-between-put flickering, glitching, crashing, and breaking.

_But wait!_ she could almost hear a salesman announcing cheerfully (he’d be selling a car, a distant part of her mind with a voice that sounds like Sandshoes—though really, it could be anyone or no one or everyone, how should she know—says, or fake medicine that’s really chalk dust and a little bit of mint or maybe life insurance). _There’s more!_

The Matrix blew and she was plunged back into darkness.

_Disclosed_.

They call xem the Other.

Fitting, xe supposes. Not quite this, not quite that. From an Other place. The Other one. They look at xem like xe’s not quite there, or maybe xe’s a bit too much there, and their eyes seem to bore right past xem, like there’s something about xem that they just can’t quite see.

Xe’s lost track of how many bodies xe’s had, and he’s starting to think that xe doesn’t even care. It’s necessary, after all.

“You’re going to do great things, little one,” Tecteun had told xem the first times, tapping xem lightly on the nose. And xe’d trusted them, xe really had.

Not anymore. It’s all procedure.

Xe doesn’t know what trust means anymore. Xe doesn’t think xe cares.

Xe’d mentioned it to Konan once, a few bodies ago (months, or maybe weeks—xe could probably remember the exact time, but xe just really couldn’t be bothered).

“Tell him to fuck off,” Konan had said bluntly, back curved slightly to fit into the loft of their old room.

“I can’t,” xe’d said.

“‘Course you can,” Konan had said, lifting a cup of tea to her lips. “You’re only his lab rat ‘cause you let yourself be.”

“It’s for the greater good,” xe had said, and Konan had made a gagging noise.

“For Pythia’s sake,” Konan had said. “How dumb are you? Don’t answer that,” she’d said when xe bristled. “It’s yours, isn’t it? Regeneration, I mean. You’ve no reason to share it with him.”

“You don’t mean that,” xe’d said.

Konan had snorted. “ _Time Lord_ ,” she’d said, and her lip had curled. “Makes sense, though. Only he could have come up with that sort of bullshit.” She’d thrown her head back, downing the entire cup of scalding tea in a gulp. “If I wanted to spend eternity as a carbon copy of you, I would have asked.” The words stung, but xe didn’t flinch.

“He saved you,” xe’d said quietly. Xe remembered the first time she’d emerged from the golden flames, young and strong again, and xe remembered that she’d wept.

(Xe didn’t remember the disdainful curl of new lips when she’d flexed new fingers for the first time, or the strength of the shove that came from more than unfamiliarity with new muscles. Xe also didn’t remember the anger bubbling behind her eyes when she’d seen the Panopticon for the first time, and the three towering, faceless statues.)

“Why should I care?” Konan had said more than asked, and her knuckles had been white when she raised her cup to her lips. “He left me.”

There was a bitterness in her voice that xe’d never heard (or maybe never noticed) before, and a coldness that xe wouldn’t come to realize until it was too late.

_Disclosed_.

It takes centuries. Just like everything.

Konan breaks, and he runs. It only seems fair. He sheds the Other like a cloak (like he’d shed so many bodies before). The TARDIS jerks and shudders, and he runs around the console like a frantic rovie, spinning dials and throwing levers at random.

He probably should have picked an older TARDIS, he thinks, one that’s flown before, one that’s complete. But there’s something about this one, the bit of him that’s in every one of them not quite deadened by the metal heart shining so brightly, singing like the doomed sailor in the crow’s nest of the sinking ship, that draws him in. He takes her, and he thinks _we’ll make us complete_.

They crash. He grabs at the floor that’s suddenly become vertical as he slides down and crashes through a set of doors that didn’t look like that earlier.

The wind gets knocked out of his lungs (he has three this time, and he gets a funny little tingle in the small of his back every time he breathes out) as he lands on his back, and the sky is blue and there’s something so familiar about this, but so different as well, because there’s a blue box bending branches adorned in green leaves above him and sweetness in the air that he thinks might be life.

There’s someone else, he realizes idly. Hands so warm that they sear him through the thin fabric of his tunic, and a mind that’s so quiet he wonders, for a moment, if they even have one. He blinks up at the face blocking the light of the solitary sun, and he thinks he hears the word “doctor.”

“Yes,” says the Doctor, “I do think so.”

_Disclosed_

They find hir. It was only a matter of time.

It is, to their credit, quiet. Mia’s dead before she even realizes why they’ve stopped. It’s a small comfort.

And then the Division that’s not the Division takes hir back. Ze doesn’t remember much after that. Ze knows that ze screams. Ze knows that ze fights.

It’s a spur-of-the-moment decision. Ze knows they won’t kill hir—what if their own lives were snuffed out along with hirs? Ze doesn’t feel much like sticking around to find out what they plan to do instead.

They won’t kill hir, and that’s the part that hurts the most, because—

Ze sees the Looms.

Ze jumps.

_Disclosed_

When she turns eight, nobody shows up at the door to take her to the Academy, and nobody bothers to tell her why.

There’s a TARDIS in the fields behind the house. She doesn’t tell anyone—not her Cousins, not her parents, not her siblings, not the grumpy Housekeeper who looks down vis nose at her and spends vis nights muttering nonsense in the dark. It’s half-buried in the crimson soil, like somebody was trying to hide it. The doors hiss open for her before she’s even touched them, and she spends her days running through the maze of empty corridors and doors that open to nothing behind them. She climbs onto the console and leans against the central column and listens to the silence and the humming songs she knows she should hear and comes up with stories about the maze of halls and the rooms that vanish with a turn of her eyes.

It really should have come as less of a surprise to them when she wakes her with a familiar song and runs.

_Disclosed_

And she runs—

And he runs—

And they run—

And she runs—

And she runs—

And he runs—

And e runs—

And ve runs—

And he runs—

And they lock him away so he can’t run again but he still runs—

And she runs—

And it’s always the same.

_Disclosed_

And, throughout the millions of lives they’ve never been given the chance to count, four words stay the same.

“ _Hello. I’m the Doctor_.”

_Disclosed_

They have friends, sometimes. They have a friend, sometimes. They always find them, and it’s always familiar.

There’s an ancient TARDIS in the woods surrounding the house, so buried that, when he first finds it, he thinks it’s just another mound of dirt. But she’s singing, softly and weakly, but so, so alive, and he spends the rest of the day, digging and throwing dirt over his shoulder until he can see her.

There’s a tree growing over her, roots wound tightly around what little of her he can see, like a prison of wood and barbs. He slips through a gap, and into the empty console room.

He keeps sneaking back, even after he’s admitted into the Academy (he’d looked into the Untempered Schism, and there was something inside it that was so familiar, and he’s seen infinity and been inspired). One night, Kuai follows him, and he shows him his secret.

They run, together, and there’s nothing they can’t do. World burn and rise and fall and shine at their whim, and they’re victorious. And then, one day, the Master pushes Bella off a cliff, and the Doctor realizes he doesn’t quite care.

They’re the ones who push her into the Loom this time, but not before shooting her in the hearts, first.

They never like guns much after that.

_Disclosed_

There’s an ancient TARDIS buried in an empty grave, and a Doctor in a grey coat, and a Doctor in a blue one.

There are memories bleeding through the taut fabric of Time, and a hundred thousand paradoxes wrapped up in a million wrapped up in another million more, and she sees Gallifrey burning through eyes that aren’t yet her own.

He died first, this time, and the Doctor returns home alone.

The earth beneath her feet is whole, and the glass dome sparkles in the sunlight, and she can’t help but wonder how long it’ll stand.

The streets of the Capital are still familiar. Small comforts.

The doors of the Panopticon swung open, crashing into the walls with a _bang_.

The rustling of robes was nearer to the roaring of a gale through a forest as hundreds of faces turned towards her. More than a few Time Lords stood, the sunlight glinting blindingly off of their headdresses. Whispers rippled through the room as she marched forwards, ignoring their stares, until she stood directly in front of the dais, crossing her arms defiantly. Her mind hummed with the voices of the millions, and she was acutely aware of the psychic waves bouncing around the room.

_Traitor_ , the very air itself seemed to hiss. _Traitor, traitor, traitor_.

The song of the hivemind was so much louder than it had been in years. Sometimes she missed being Ruth, who had had only her own voice in her head.

Rassilon stood slowly, rising from his throne. “You.” She felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up at the contempt in his words, and the part of her that was still a terrified child wanted to curl up into a ball, tuck herself away from his gaze, and never come out.

Instead she said, voice stiff and carefully measured, “Lord President.”

“The esteemed traveller graces us with her presence,” he drawled. “To what do we owe the honour?” He spread his hands, gesturing at the gathered Council, and the hisses of disdain in the back of her mind grew louder.

“We need to talk,” she said. She met his eyes and, fully aware of how ridiculous she looked. For a moment, she wondered whether she’d be dragged out, or if they’d wait for her to turn around and walk away on her own. She was more than a bit surprised when Rassilon nodded stiffly and waved a hand at the rest of the assembly. Within minutes, they were alone.

She cast her eyes around the room as he walked the steps of the dais towards her. “You’ve redecorated,” she commented, dragging her eyes over the elaborate carvings and symbols etched into the high golden walls. “I don’t like it.”

“Of course you don’t,” he said, stopping in front of her. “After all, it’s progress.”

“If that’s how you see it.” She picked idly at a hangnail.

“That’s what it is,” he said. “What do we need to talk about?”

She forced herself to look up, giving him a look that she hoped passed as cold contempt. “You,” she said. “You’ve been messing about with Time.”

“Certainly not,” he said. “The only who’s been doing that has been you, hasn’t it?”

“Not like this,” she said.

“We’ve done nothing,” he said. “You shouldn’t be here. So why are you?”

“Like I said.” She tilted her head surreptitiously. “To talk.”

“We’ve nothing to discuss,” he said. “You were never to set foot on Gallifrey again. I thought I had made it clear.”

“Then why send them after me?” she challenged.

“The _CIA_.” Rassilon shook his head condescendingly and she clenched her fists, feeling herself flush. “I should have you executed just for what you did to Gat.”

“No, you won’t,” she growled. “You’re going to listen.”

He narrowed his eyes coldly. “Very well, _Doctor_ ,” he said, lip twisting. “Speak. Quickly.”

Their voices echoed in the cavernous room, and she clenched her jaw as a phantom chill ran down her back. She didn’t like being back here. “I met myself,” she said. “Another version of myself.”

Rassilon made a low, frustrated noise in the back of his throat, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Of course _you_ did,” he hissed. “All that gallivanting around the universe—it’s a miracle this is the only time it’s happened—”

“You didn’t let me finish,” she interrupted. “She didn’t remember me. But I didn’t remember her, either.”

“Memories can be altered,” he spat.

“As I’m sure you’re aware.” He stiffened, knuckles whitening dangerously on his staff. “What’s going on?” she demanded. “Time is wrong, I can feel it. It’s like. . .” _Like standing on the edge of a crumbling cliff. Like watching a wave coming in and knowing it’s going to sweep you away. Like being in a tree when it’s struck by lightning_. “Like something’s ending.”

Rassilon didn’t respond. She pressed on. “The other Doctor—she said that Gallifrey had been destroyed. And it was, in her timeline, I saw it.”

Rassilon’s fingers curled and uncurled against the staff. “There have been prophecies,” he said. “Not just in the Citadel. In Arcadia, even in the Outlands. Visions of a war. A Time War.”

_Gallifrey destroyed_.

She inhaled sharply. He whipped around to meet her gaze. She pursed her lips and looked away. The other Doctor’s face swam before her eyes for a second and she winced, squeezing her eyes shut as a sudden, sharp pain cut through her head, like a drill boring through her mind. A hand brushed her temple and, instinctively, she grabbed it, pressing it tighter against her head. The pain vanished, and she sighed as a feeling like a cool balm washed over her. She let go of the hand, but it didn’t move.

“Rassil—”

She stumbled as a wall of drowsiness slammed into her, her legs giving out under her. A hand gripped her shoulder, lowering her slowly to the ground, the other still firmly pressed to her head.

“What are you doing?” she croaked out. Her eyelids were growing heavy, and his face swam in front of her.

“The prophecies saw something else.” His grip tightened and her mouth opened in a quiet gasp of pain that she couldn’t quite feel. “A man, standing at the helm of the war, at whose hands Gallifrey fell. A healer, he called himself. A doctor of war.”

She grabbed his wrist. “It’s not me,” she hissed through gritted teeth. “I wouldn’t—”

“Not yet,” he agreed. She suddenly found, to her horror, that she couldn’t remember how she had arrived.

“Please, Tecteu—” She didn’t know where the new name came from. The hands pinning her down tightened even more and, when she blinked, she couldn’t remember what she had just said.

_It’s all right_. His words echoed in her mind. She blinked twice, hard, the world fading in and out in front of her eyes. Her thoughts were hazy, as if someone were wrapping cotton around her brain, and she realized, with perhaps less alarm than she should have, that she couldn’t remember who was speaking to her.

_It’s different_ , she thought. _Different this time_. And then she wondered what it was that was different. And then she forgot.

_No_. She shook her head as hard as she could, clawing feebly at his hand. _Please don’t do this_.

_It’s all right_. A hand brushed a stray strand of hair from her forehead. _It’s all right. Just listen to my voice_. She couldn’t hear a voice, but the words echoed in her head just the same. _It’s all right_.

Her arms dropped to her sides, limp and still.

_You’ve served your purpose. I’m just sorry that you won’t remember it_.

She slumped forwards, eyes drifting shut.

_Time to go home_.

_Thank you for your service. We’re just sorry you won’t rememberinininininininininininini_ —

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one was blind and the Other couldn’t see

so they chose a dummy for a referee

a blind man went to see fair play

and a dumb man went to shout hooray

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And then she remembered herself in the Matrix, remembering her very first memory. And then she remembered the end, which led back to the beginning. Around and round they went, and then she remembered the beginning again.

The trap was strong, but so was she. She grabbed the edges and ripped herself free.

_Error R49-7Q3-P4N-404: Content not found. Please try again later_.

“. . .me on, wake up. Doctor. _Doctor_!”

She groaned quietly, turning her head to the side and pressing her face tighter into the floor. _The floor is nice_ , she thought idly. _The floor doesn’t try to wake me up. I like the floor_.

“Doctor!” There was a hand on her shoulder, shaking her as roughly as it could while still being gentle. “Doctor, please wake up!”

She groaned again, louder this time, and cracked her eyes open. Her head was throbbing in ways that would make a hangover feel like a brief headache, and even the dull light within the room was like having the space behind her eyes being stabbed over and over again with a dull, many-edged knife. She squeezed her eyes shut again with a muttered noise somewhere between a curse and a whimper.

“She’s awake!” the same voice called, thick with relief. She winced at the noise, headache increasing tenfold. “Doctor!” Gentle hands grasped her shoulders, easing her into a half-sitting, half-kneeling position.

“You alright, love?” another voice asked, and she felt a feverishly warm hand brushed against her forehead.

“She’s warmer than usual,” a third voice said, laced with worry, as yet another hand grasped her wrist, calloused fingers pressing over her pulse. She squirmed, skin tingling at the sheer amount of _touch_ from all sides, but could only manage a weak shiver. “What did he do to her?”

“Warm?” a new voice cut in. “Are you kidding me? She’s freezing!”

“She’s supposed to be like that,” the second voice said. “It’s her species, yeah?”

“How is she even alive—"

“Doctor,” a careful hand pressed against her cheek and she wrinkled her nose, turning away from the touch. “Doctor, please, can you hear me?”

Finally, her lips moved. “Loud and clear.” She forced her eyes open again, the room swimming around her in a swirling mess of colour and light. She focused on the blob in front of her, narrowing her eyes just enough so that her lids weren’t touching, and squinting until the blurry face of Yasmin Khan came into focus.

Yaz’s face split into a huge grin. “Hey,” she said.

“Hey.” She forced herself to smile back.

Graham crouched down beside her, his own smile doing little to mask the obvious worry in his eyes. “All right there, then?” he asked. “Looks like he really did a number on you.”

The Doctor shook her head, and immediately stopped when her disorientation went from mild wobbling to the teacup ride at Disneyland. “I’m alright,” she said, voice hoarse. She cleared her throat and licked her lips, feeling dry, cracked flesh beneath her tongue. “Fine,” she said again. “Now that you’re here,” she added with another smile.

She realized there was a hesitant hand on her back, keeping her upright. “You good, Doctor?” the figure beside her that she recognized as Ryan asked.

She nodded minutely and took a deep breath. The throbbing in her head was subsiding, slowly but surely, and the room was beginning to come into clearer focus. Behind Yaz, she could see two other people—Ravio and Yedlarmi, she vaguely remembered—and she sensed two more behind her—Ethan and Ko Sharmus, she could only assume.

She took another breath and pushed herself to her feet, shrugging off Ryan’s hand when he reached over to help. “Fine,” she said again through gritted teeth.

“Doctor?” Yaz frowned, forehead creasing as the Doctor turned towards her. “What—”

“Nothing.” And a hundred thousand voices spoke at once, and she silently cursed herself as Yaz flinched away. “Sorry,” she muttered, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes. “I just—”

“We get it, Doctor.” There was a horribly sympathetic look on Ryan’s face and the Doctor’s stomach turned

_No you don’t_ , she nearly spat. _You have no idea_. She felt—

She didn’t know how she felt. She wanted to scream, and cry, and sit in a corner and not move for the rest of eternity. She wanted to punch a wall, or kick a table, just to feel something that wasn’t the soul-crushing exhaustion pressing down on her from all sides. She wanted to laugh, just from how ridiculous the whole thing was.

Or maybe she was just going mad. Not like it would be the first time.

“We need to get out of here,” she said instead. “Now.”

“But—”

“No!” And she hated herself for the way she whirled around to glare at them, for the way her voice rose, for the way her fists clenched at the side and for the way she cut them off with a single look like it was the easiest thing in the world. “We need to leave,” she said, stiffly unclenching her fists and lowering her voice. “Now.”

“The ship’s gone,” said Ethan. “We left it back there, on the other side of the Boundary.”

“There’s another way.” The Doctor shook her head again and began walking. “Follow me,” she said.

She had once roamed these halls, she thought as they ran through the twisted labyrinth, sidestepping broken walls and shattered glass and squeezing through the gaps between collapsed columns. Before, and before. She couldn’t help but hold out a hand and drag her fingertips along the walls as they ran, tracing familiar patterns in the elegant grooves, only to draw them back when they got nicked by broken stone.

“What is this place, anyways?” she heard Yedlarmi mutter to Ravio. “‘S it where that Doctor came from? That’s what the others said.”

“Must be, then.”

“Why’re we following them, anyways?” Yedlarmi demanded under his breath. “Fuskle n’ the others are dead ‘cos of them. Why—"

“They saved us,” Ravio hissed.

“But why’re we _here_? The Boundary’s supposed to take us somewhere safe, innit? So why’d it drop us in the middle of some wasteland—”

( _And she remembered falling from a rip in a time and space and staring into her beginning a million times, and, suddenly, she realized why she’d ran_.)

They reached the TARDISes. The Doctor slammed her palm against the button on the wall, relishing the shock of pain that jolted up her arm. The door swung open slowly and they rushed through.

She heard Ryan, Yaz, and Graham’s quiet gasps of recognition. “Doc,” said Graham, “is this another TARDIS?”

“Yeah.” The TARDIS is new, though still older than she knows the humans think it to be. The hum of its consciousness was hardly a whisper compared to the song of her own, and, when it brushed against her mind, she felt its cold detachment like a slap. Somehow, in a day full of pain and betrayal, the frigid rejection of a ship so much like her own hurt the most.

“What’s a Tar-dis?” Ravio asked.

“Time and space ship,” the Doctor explained, taking a second to slap Ko Sharmus’s hands away from the controls. She turned away from her friends’ overtly obvious looks of concern, rushing to the other side of the console. “It can take us away from here,” she said as she flipped a lever, “back to—”

_Contact_.

_Disclosed_.

**Author's Note:**

> _One fine day in the middle of the night,_   
>  _Two dead boys got up to fight,_   
>  _Back to back they faced each other,_   
>  _Drew their swords and shot each other,_   
>    
>  _One was blind and the other couldn't see_   
>  _So they chose a dummy for a referee._   
>  _A blind man went to see fair play,_   
>  _A dumb man went to shout "hooray!"_   
>    
>  _A paralysed donkey passing by,_   
>  _Kicked the blind man in the eye,_   
>  _Knocked him through a nine inch wall,_   
>  _Into a dry ditch and drowned them all,_   
>    
>  _A deaf policeman heard the noise,_   
>  _And came to arrest the two dead boys,_   
>  _If you don't believe this story’s true,_   
>  _Ask the blind man he saw it too!_


End file.
